


An Unpayable Debt

by xpityx



Category: Fast and the Furious Series, The Fast and the Furious (2001)
Genre: Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Past Domestic Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:35:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22134139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xpityx/pseuds/xpityx
Summary: Brian knew he needed to snap out of it.It was like watching a stranger: one who knew all the right things to say; knew how to buy time; how to take just enough money out of his account that it wouldn’t set off any alarms. He surfaced about 100 miles from the border, where he pulled over hard and stumbled out of the car, trying to throw up and getting nothing but bile. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten.“Hey!” said a rough voice from the back seat of the car. “What the fuck are you doing? What you going to do if a cop sees you?”He ignored Vince, taking deep breaths of exhaust-tinged air.He’d made his choice, never mind that he’d apparently been half asleep for it. He couldn’t stop now, not when they were so close.
Relationships: Brian O'Conner/Dominic Toretto
Comments: 18
Kudos: 328





	An Unpayable Debt

**Author's Note:**

> Suicide mention is brief but there, as is the domestic violence description. Contact details at the end if you'd like more info - am happy to help.
> 
> Beta'd by [SlumberousTrash](https://slumberoustrash.tumblr.com/), title from The Antlers ‘Kettering’: _I wish that I had known from that first minute we met the unpayable debt that I owed you._

_Brian knew he needed to snap out of it._

_It was like watching a stranger: one who knew all the right things to say; knew how to buy time; how to take just enough money out of his account that it wouldn’t set off any alarms. He surfaced about 100 miles from the border, where he pulled over hard and stumbled out of the car, trying to throw up and getting nothing but bile. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten._

_“Hey!” said a rough voice from the back seat of the car. “What the fuck are you doing? What you going to do if a cop sees you?”_

_He ignored Vince, taking deep breaths of exhaust-tinged air._

_He’d made his choice, never mind that he’d apparently been half asleep for it. He couldn’t stop now, not when they were so close._

_“Fuck! Come on man, fucking say something!’_

_“I’m okay,’ Brian rasped, surprised at how disused his voice sounded. “I’m okay.”_

_He leant into the car to grab a bottle of water, swilling out his mouth before taking a deep drink. He was starving, he realised. In a couple of hours they’d be across the border and eating quesadillas. The thought buoyed him: he knew he’d planned his escape well. The crossing would be packed with the weekend rush and they might not have even noticed Vince’s absence yet: even longer until they thought to check for Brian himself._

_He swung back into the car, settling into the seat of the oldsmobile he’d bought cash._

_“You like quesadillas?” Brian asked, once they were back on the highway._

_He flicked at glance at Vince, stretched out on the backseat with his shoulder immoble against him. He looked like he was trying to decide whether to laugh or try to punch him. Vince sighed, slumping further back into the seats._

_“Yeah, yeah I like them. You are fucking strange, dude.”_

_“What type?”_

_“What…?”_

_Brian had his eyes on the road again, as traffic started to build, but he could sense Vince shaking his head._

_“I dunno, any type man. I’d take a fucking Wendy’s as long it was on the other side of the border.”_

_“We’re going to make it,” Brian stated, and it wasn’t even for his own benefit. They_ **_were_ ** _going to make it._

_Vince snorted. “You’re fucking crazy, Buster, but I believe you.”_

  
  
  
  
  


Brian had texted Dom the night before—some bullshit about getting an early night. 

They all knew by now that sometimes Brian just needed to be by himself for 24 hours so they let him pretend they believed whatever excuse he gave for missing some event. It was what they had learned to do for each other, now more than ever: how to weave around each other’s hurts. Dom was grateful for it on the odd occasion he thought of it, more grateful than he knew how to say that they’d all stuck around even as the ties between them had shifted. 

By 11 o’clock the next morning though Brian had still not made an appearance at the garage and Dom was pissed. Well, he was worried, but he was telling himself he was pissed. 

“You want me to call him?” Leon eventually offered, hovering a couple of feet away from where Dom was doing an oil change.

“No. I’ll do it.” Dom threw the greasy rag he’d been using over a shoulder. “Finish this will you?”

Leon nodded, moving to the car while still giving him a wide berth—as if Dom was a smoking car on the edge of an explosion.

In the office Brian’s phone rang and rang, eventually switching to an answerphone message that must have been the automatic one that the cell phone company provided. Dom listened to the robotic voice ask him politely to leave a message twice before putting the phone down with a little more force than necessary. 

Letty raised her eyebrows in question when he came out of the tiny office and Dom shook his head. She nodded, both as an acknowledgement and a dismissal to go check on him. For all that they stopped dating a while ago, Letty still read Dom better than anyone who wasn’t Mia. 

He hopped into the 1970 Pontiac GTO that Mia had driven down last time she’d visited. It had been a hunk of shit that had barely made it over the border but everyone had been grinning when she’d rolled up to the garage in it, the noise of the engine drowning out the terrible, white-boy techno Leon loved.

Brian’s tiny house was less than ten minutes away by car, on the very outskirts of Caracas where they’d landed some 18 months ago. They’d mostly kept out of trouble, opening a garage with the money they’d managed to get away with. Not that they had any worries about being extradited: Venezuela was not a country that gave any particular fucks about the might of the good ole US of A. 

He rolled up on the drive and killed the engine, waiting for a moment to see if Brian would run out of the house apologising for over sleeping or whatever. When that didn’t happen he got out of the car. It was rainy season and the humidity was like trying to breathe through a wet sock. Dense undergrowth wound up the foothills of the mountain behind him and the cicadas and frogs made a screaming wall of sound. The front door was unlocked as if Brian was living in Potluck, Nowheresville instead of a big city that wasn’t known for its low crime rate. 

“Bri?” he called into the warm darkness. All the drapes were still drawn, and it looked like the shutters at the back of the house were all down. 

He made himself take his time, locking the front door behind him and checking the kitchen first at the front of the house before venturing into the living room. It was cooler there, a fan turning lazy circles in the corner. 

Brian was slumped over on the floor in front of the sofa, a bottle of something alcoholic-looking held loosely in one hand.

There was a handgun on the table. Dom fell to his knees next to him, beyond fear.

“Bri? O’Conner!”

“Dom?”

Dom sat back on his heels and just breathed for a moment. He hadn’t even known that Brian _had_ a gun. 

“Dom? Am I… am I late?” Brian added.

He sounded drunk. 

“What’s with the gun, Bri?” 

Brian squinted at him for a moment before turning to look at it. 

He shook his head. “I just wanted to see.”

“See what?” 

Nothing about this felt right. Dom could feel a crash coming up on him, slow motion brakes squealing and the smell of burning rubber and there was fuck all he could do about it. 

“See what, Bri?” he asked again.

Brian put a hand over his face and it took Dom a moment to register that he was trying not to cry. As far as he knew Brian _never_ cried. Every year on the anniversary of Jesse’s death the whole crew got wasted and on more than one occasion Dom had cried for his friend. There was no shame in it: it was the price he paid for loving his family, for being loved in return. Brian had always held himself a little apart though. 

Dom put a tentative hand on his shoulder, not sure what he needed. Brian reached out and snarled a hand into the front of Dom’s t-shirt pulling him closer. Dom went easily, his arm over Brian’s shoulders. 

“I fucked up, Dom. I fucked up so bad. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

And here it was, the inevitable end to the sideways lurch as the wheels go from under you and you lose control of the race. 

“It’s okay,” Dom tucked his hand around the vulnerable curve of Brian’s head where he was leaning into him. “It’s going to be okay, Bri.”

  
  
  


Brian twitched and tensed, uneasy even in his sleep. Dom had managed to convince him to drink a glass of water before he’d passed out, but he was still going to feel like shit when he surfaced. Partially cause of the hangover, but mostly because his little brother had committed suicide a fortnight ago. 

Dom hadn’t known Brian had any family, let alone people he’d kept in touch with. He’d asked him about it once, on a drive somewhere, just the two of them and the ocean flashing blue between the trees. 

_Not like you do,_ he’d said.

And that had been it. One of those O’Connor things where he lost his easy grin for a moment and you remembered he’d killed the guy who’d taken out Jesse: killed one of the most notorious gangsters in L.A. Dom hadn’t asked again.

Turns out this whole time he’d had a little brother, living his life with his wife and his kid out in Barstow. Both his parents were still alive even, though he didn’t seem to know much more than that. Which was fair after the shitshow Brian had described. Dom was pretty sure he hadn’t meant to say so much, but he’d been gone—the whole thing pouring out of him like a poison he needed to spit up. 

Brian’s first real memory: his dad smashing his mom’s face into the bannister in the hallway while Brian stood there, holding his brother’s hand. 

The police would come sometimes when the neighbours called them. All colleagues of his dad, drinking tea served to them by a woman with two black eyes and saying nothing about it. She left when they were 11 and 9, and he’d gotten full custody. He’d never hit his boys, but he’d make sure they knew they were nothing. He’d pit them against each other, giving Brian chores but not Tommy, or taking Brian to a baseball game and leaving Tommy at home. They got better at avoiding him eventually, and Brian left home at 18, straight into the Police Academy, which said a whole lot about him, Dom thought. Like he could fix the system from the inside. 

Brian rang his brother once every couple of months or so, and hadn’t heard from either parents for a long time. His mother had visited them both as a kid, but his father had stood over her the whole time—maybe had still beaten her—until one day she’d stopped coming.

Tommy had stayed in the same town they’d grown up in, inviting his piece of shit father into his home for dinner, for holidays. And now he was dead, shooting the back of his head out one morning when his wife and kids were out. Dom was sure there was more to it than the abusive bastard they called a father, but Brian had decided the whole thing was his fault. That he’d left his baby brother in the hands of a monster and now he was dead. 

Dom was going to give it a couple of days before he suggested his brother had been an adult who’d made his own choices, and Brian wasn’t doing him any favours by thinking of him as the little kid he’d been. Brian had been a kid too when he’d left. 18 was nothing. Dom should know, some of the shit he’d done at 18.

He’d rang the garage and let everyone know that Brian was out for the day. He’d wanted to ask Vince if he’d known about Brian having a brother, but knew he couldn’t—not until he’d spoken to Brian sober.

It made something in Dom uncomfortable to think of all these ties that Brian had: he and Vince were close, which was something that would have been unbelievable when they’d first met, and now this. Brian had been at pains to make it clear that it was he who contacted Tommy: none of the family had any contact for Brian. They didn’t even know which continent he was on. Dom had tried not to show his relief: for all that Venezuela was not inclined to extradite, it was not a policy he had any intention of testing. 

All he could do for the moment was wait until Brian woke up and to try to give him what he needed. It was the least he could do.

  
  
  
  


What Brian had decided he needed was to pretend everything was fine when it obviously wasn’t. He’d given his permission to tell the rest of the crew—well, he’d shrugged when Dom had asked about it—and had accepted everyone’s quiet expressions of sympathy with grace, but that had been it. Grieving: Brian O’Connor style. It made Dom wonder if he’d missed Brian dealing with any other shit, just grinning and joking and pretending everything was fine. After nearly a month of Brian’s aggressive good mood Dom gave up asking. Either Brian would ask for help or he’d get drunk and start a bar fight. Dom or Vince or someone would be a step behind him when he did get round to it. 

Not that Brian was the only one with baggage: they all had their own shit. Every single one of them had seen and done things most people behind their picket fences couldn’t even imagine, so Dom tried to take it in his stride when one of his team lost their sense of humor temporarily. That week though, everyone except for Leon and Brian seemed to have woken up on the wrong side of the road.

Letty was giving Vince some serious side eye. So much so that Dom had taken himself to the other side of the garage just in case he got caught in the crossfire when Letty finally let loose. 

He kept an eye out all day, but the emotion stayed simmering under the surface. Dom waved them all out of there at five on the dot, hoping to get some actual work done on a Toyota Supra someone had brought in over the weekend. But when he came back out of the office Vince was sitting on the bumper, looking more thoughtful than he had any right to look. 

“You good?” Dom asked.

“Yeah, I’m good,” Vince replied, looking anything but. “Mind if I work on this with you for a bit?” he added.

Dom made a gesture of welcome, and they started hoisting her up. They didn’t need to talk about it: they’d been working side by side on cars since before their voices had broken. 

“We went out last week,” Vince started, after they’d been working for some half an hour.

Dom made no reply, but turned his head a little as he worked to show he was listening.

“Letty said she was going to some girls club and Rosa said she was going with her. Me and Leon were like fuck that, we want to see some girls getting it on too. Letty said sure, but we had to go to a gay dudes club first. She must have thought we’d back down, but no way. They’ve got a fucking girls only strip club called Candy Bar - guys can only go with another girl. A fucking lesbian strip bar,” Vince paused to shake his head. “Can you imagine?” he asked, real wonder in his voice.

Dom snorted. Only Vince would end up in a gay club when he’d meant to go see some naked dancing lesbians.

“So we went down to Dos Barras, you know it?” Vince continued.

“Yeah, I’ve heard of it. Over near the Sabana Grand, yeah?”

“Yeah, rough as fuck. Swear I saw three dudes getting blow jobs in the alley before we’d even got in the door. Anyhow, we go in and it’s pitch fucking dark, music so loud I thought I was going to puke. We were going to the bar and I looked over and there was Brian.”

Dom looked up sharply, the wrench in his hand hanging loose and forgotten.

Vince just looked grim.

“He, er, he was coming out the toilets. He was so drunk—you know that dopey smile he gets when you feed him half a bottle of the good stuff?”

Dom nodded.

“He was like that. And there was a guy with him, holding him up, hand on his ass. Brian looked… he looked wrecked, Dom, he looked like he’d been having a good time.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I don’t fucking know!” Vince threw his hands up. “Letty and Rosa are both pissed cause I turned straight around and told them we were leaving so they wouldn’t see him. And the day after Brian came in half limping with a fucking hickey and he laughed about it with us! Remember?”

Dom did. He hadn’t put the two together until Vince had reminded him, still stuck on the idea of Brian fucking guys. Worse, of Brian fucking guys and not telling Dom about it. There weren’t supposed to be any secrets between them, and first Tommy and now this.

“We didn’t even fucking go to the Candy Club!”

Dom raised an eyebrow.

“Oh fuck you, man. I was looking forward to it. I fucking love Rosa, but _lesbian strippers_ , okay?”

They went back to work for a bit, but Dom couldn’t concentrate.

“You going to have a problem with him?” Dom asked, eventually.

“What? Fuck no. Me and the Buster, we’re good, man. I just, I didn’t know what to do… He was really drunk, you know?”

Dom nodded, and Vince looked relieved, like he’d needed Dom’s absolution for leaving Brian there. Dom understood. Most of the time Brian was cool as anything, but when he flipped his shit he just blew past all reason and went straight to crazytown. Dom might have hesitated before intervening too.

“You going to talk to him?” Vince asked, once it was clear they weren’t going to be doing any more work that night. Dom waited until they’d put away their tools and cleaned up the garage before answering.

“Yeah, I’ll talk to him.”

  
  
  


He’d never thought about it. Just, not even once. He remembered hearing somewhere that sometimes, when you were growing up, you’d think about other guys in the way you thought about girls and that it was all natural and you’d grow out of it, etc etc… At the time he’d been puzzled rather than disgusted, but as he’d gotten older he’d picked up some of the shit men said to each other. He’d called a guy a fag in front of his dad who’d then asked, mild as anything, why he thought how someone loved could be a bad thing. Even now he could feel the hot shame of having let his dad down in some way.

He had a second cousin who was gay. It was no big deal. But he felt blindsided by Brian, after a few days he realised he was also feeling betrayed, which was fucked up even for him. Letty had said something to him when they’d split up for good and he made himself think about it now.

_You always keep your eyes on the scales, always making sure when you give something of yourself to someone that you’re getting something back. Some people just aren’t going to turn themselves inside out for you, or they’re going to hold a bit of themselves back, and you’re going to have to love them anyway, or you’ll end up with nothing. Stop trying to control it all, Torretto._

He’d tried to take it to heart, though it was hard when Leon and Letty had started having their own thing, making friends outside of their family. He felt it was a personal failing whenever Brian texted with some bull reason for not coming over for a BBQ on the weekend. But this… He could feel the old anger clawing at him, blurring the boundaries of what he knew to be acceptable. That was always the worst of it. This was not what he’d been taught, and he knew, he _knew_ , how unacceptable his rage was, but it pulled him away from all his reason until he was just a fucking stereotype of the worst kind: a thug, a violent lowlife with no respect for anything and anyone. He rubbed a hand over his face and got up, pushing himself away from the counter and out of his house with quick, economical movements. 

He was up in the mountains before he’d really thought about it, the tight curves of the road forcing him to control the car that felt as close as he ever got to controlling his temper. _Brian belonged to him_. A spray of gravel arced up as he turned, the raw trunks of trees a testament to those who’d taken to corner too sharply. They were bound to each other by betrayal and blood and he couldn’t stand the thought of there being a part of him that was beyond his reach. 

Even learning about Tommy hadn’t made him feel like this, like he was staring at him over Vince’s bleeding body while Brian announced he’d been lying from the moment they’d met. Brian had shared a little of his grief over his brother’s death with Dom that first day, had sobbed into his chest. And anyway, Tommy was dead now and had no hold over Brian any more. It was an ugly fucking thought, and Dom grimaced as he took the next corner, the flash of the sun between the trees blinding for a moment. It was not the worst thought he’d ever had though, and he forced it down into the dark where he kept the shit he tried not to think of. 

The idea that Brian could want another guy was not the thing that had pissed him off, and for that much he was grateful to his family for setting him right about that shit. He’d seen stuff in Lompoc that had given him nightmares, but he knew that that stuff was far away from what most guys did together. 

By the time he rolled up to Brian’s he’d mostly got the initial anger he’d felt under control. Like Letty had said, he had to learn to let his people have their own business.

Dom could hear the telenova that Brian was watching when Dom let himself in, although he switched it off the second Dom called out a greeting. Dom helped himself to a Corona from the fridge then went into the living room.

“Hey Dom, what’s up?”

“You didn’t tell me,” Dom said, instead of the hundred other, better things he could have opened with.

Brian looked puzzled for a moment, then his eyes went wide.

“Shit. How?”

“Vince saw you. No-one else did, just him.”

Brian put down his own beer and turned in his seat to face Dom, not denying it, not backing down. 

“You’ve got to know why I never said anything.”

Dom gave a grudging nod. Yeah, he knew what Brian must’ve thought. Didn’t make him feel any better about it.

“My cousin’s gay,” Dom told him.

“I’m not gay, Dom. I like women just fine,” Bri said, but Dom ignored him.

“Most, nearly all, the family came round to the idea. Took some longer than others, some said some stupid shit, but most of us got there. One day we heard that some fuck had grafittited his house, so me and the boys go down to help clean it off. It was me, Leon, Vince, and one of Hector’s boys. We roll up and my cousin comes to the door with his boyfriend I can see the fear in his eyes. We’d known for years by then, but still, he wasn’t sure what we were there for.” Dom shook his head, “I understand why you didn’t say anything, but I give you my word you won’t get any shit from the rest of us about it.”

Brian tilted his beer in acknowledgement and took a long swallow.

“You bring home a boyfriend though and he better be fucking golden.”

Brian choked a little. “Jesus Dom, I’m not going to bring home a guy. It’s not like that: it’s just something I do when I need to blow off a little steam.”

Dom shrugged, not about to admit how relieved he was that he wouldn’t be sharing Brian anytime soon. 

  
  
  
  


It didn’t come up again until Brian agreed over beers one evening that he should tell the rest of the team. Brian had timed it so he was going on a pick up run for parts the very next day, so there’d be plenty of time for everyone to get any idiocy out of their system before he got back. Neither Brian nor Dom had accounted for Vince when they’d been planning it out though. 

“How was the trip?” Dom asked when Brian rolled into the garage late that night.

“Good. Sofia gave me a discount on account of my Spanish being so good for a _catire._ ”

Dom snorted.

“She wants your pretty blonde babies, more like.”

“What? No way, she’s fifty!”

“Well, she certainly didn’t give you a discount on account of your Spanish.”

“Fuck you, man,” Brian laughed. 

The drive had done him good. Of all of them it was Brian who got restless the most, who chafed at the edges of the life they’d built themselves here. 

“How was it?” Brian added.

“You remember what Vince said that one time?”

Brian snorted. “Yeah man, right on both counts eh?”

“Well, he wouldn’t shut up about it: his skills, his understanding of people, so Leon got a cheap chain from the market and folded a piece of paper over it with a picture of a shield and wrote ‘detective’ on it.”

Brian’s eyes had gotten comically wide.

“He won’t take it off,” Dom added, and Brian lost it. Dom watched him, fond, as he put his head down and just laughed. Dom wasn’t sure if it was because he was relieved or amused. “We had to make him take it off before going up to the 205 and he was pissed about it. Said he’d earned it and everyone had to respect his insights from now on.”

“ _Insights_!” Brian choked out.

Dom rolled his eyes and went out to the truck, opening up the doors so he could start to unload the parts they’d ordered. Sofia had a legitimate garage out in Caigua, but for years she’d been taking orders from places who didn’t have clean books or the right paperwork. She charged almost nothing: 1% for the privilege of using her business address. When Dom had first met her he’d asked why she didn’t charge more, especially for an unknown quantity such as himself. 

She’d spat into the dirt. _A la mierda con el sistema,_ she’d said. Fuck the system, Dom had agreed. 

Brian appeared next to him, still grinning, and together they unloaded the van. They worked quickly, not even having to exchange more than a few words to do it right. It was late by the time they finished and Brian was yawning. 

“You alright to drive?” Dom asked, just to be a dick.

“Fuck you, I drive better asleep than you do awake.”

Dom shook his head.

“You’re full of shit, O’Conner.”

“Stuck with me anyway,” Brian replied, and something about the way he said it made Dom think he’d been more worried about the team’s reaction to his announcement than he’d let on. 

“Yeah,” Dom agreed, throwing an arm around his shoulder they walked to their cars. “Life term.”

Brian was still grinning his big sunny smile when he drove off, so Dom took it as a sign that it was all good between them. 

  
  
  
  


He forgot about it, if he was honest. Well, he forget about the actual fucking guys part of it: Vince wouldn’t let any of them forget about his new skills and how he’d realised he had them. Which was why it took him a second to get it when he turned up at Brian’s a few months later to find him already dressed to go out.

“Hey,” Dom said. “I thought we were going to play pool down at the 205?”

“Sorry man, I’ve got plans. Try Vince.”

“What plans?” Dom asked, if Brian wasn’t going out with Vince then he wasn’t sure who else there was for him to have plans _with_.

Brian picked up his jacket and Dom realised he hadn’t looked him in the eye once since he’d walked in the door.

“Plans,” Brian stated again, still looking anywhere but at Dom.

Dom felt like he’d been kicked. 

“Bri, listen. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea: we don’t live in the most open-minded place in the world, huh?” 

“What the…? Dom, you said you didn’t have a problem and now you do? Fuck this,” Brian fumed, picking up his car keys and going for the front door.

Dom caught his arm just as he drew level.

“Let me,” he said, the words dropping heavily into the space between them.

“What?” 

“Let me do it for you,” Dom took a step towards him, hoping his closeness would convey what he couldn’t put into words. 

Brian looked away and for once Dom had no idea what he was thinking. Then he reached up to strip off his jacket and t-shirt, turning and heading back into the house. Dom hesitated for a moment, wondering if he was really going to do this, but just the thought of another man’s hands on Brian was enough to get him moving. By the time he got to the bedroom Brian was down to just his pants, which he was just unzipping. He looked up at Dom, face blank, and Dom got with the program, stripping down as quickly as possible. He wasn’t hard, but he needn’t have worried as Brian didn’t even look at him once he’d got his own pants off, he just turned and spread himself out on the bed, face down.

“Stuff’s in the top drawer,” he said.

Dom had another moment of total blankness before realising what Brian meant. He nodded stupidly to himself, getting a condom and a tube of off-brand lube from the bedside table before kneeling between Brian’s outflung legs.

“Want me to do it?” Brian asked.

“No.”

“Done anything like this before.”

“No.”

Brian snorted, but stayed where he was. Dom put a hand on the back of one leg, just above his knee. Brian twitched a little. Dom was aware of his breathing, how loud it seemed in the room. He was aware of the softness of Brian’s skin and of his own cock, hardening at the sight of Brian laid out in front of him. 

He ran his hand up Brian’s leg and over the swell of his ass. Brian took a sharp breath, and Dom held still. When nothing else happened, Dom pulled back to cover two fingers with lube, dipping them between Brian’s ass cheeks. His cock twitched at the thought of fucking him.

He wanted to be clinical, to be efficient, but instead he watched for every hitch in Brian’s breathing, every twitch of his hips, trying to map out what made him push back, what made him catch a moan between his teeth. 

It was Brian who called time eventually.

“Fuck, that’s enough. Just fuck me already.”

Dom almost jerked back, though he remembered himself just in time. He’d gotten lost in the rhythm of it, had forgotten this was just an itch Brian needed to scratch. He pulled out his fingers and rolled on a condom, using possibly more lube than was necessary. It wasn’t like he hadn’t had anal sex before, but he just really didn’t want to fuck this up.... Which was a mad thought to be having before fucking his best friend, but whatever. 

Brian of course was still Brian, eager and forever one step ahead of everyone else. He pushed back hungrily against Dom’s cock.

“Fuck Bri,” Dom groaned, suddenly making the whole thing more real. He was fucking Brian, his best fucking friend, and it was so good he felt like he was losing his mind. 

He leant forward over Brian, thrusting shallowly while he left sucking kisses across his shoulder, biting down a little. Brian writhed, gasping. Dom pulled back so he could thrust harder, searching for the right angle for Brian. He knew he’d found it when Brian cried aloud, and Dom used every muscle in his back and legs to keep himself thrusting at that same sweet spot. 

Brian shifted, moving a hand down underneath him. Well fuck that, Dom thought, moving his own hand to Brian’s cock. It jumped in his hand, which was up there as one of the hottest things he’d ever experienced. He jacked Brian off to the rhythm of his thrusts, Brian pushing back against him, fucking himself on Dom’s cock. 

“Dom!” He gasped out, “I’m going to…”

“Yeah, come on my cock,” Dom said, thrusting a little harder for emphasis. 

Brian made an obscene noise and came in hot spurts over Dom’s hand. Dom milked him through his orgasm then extricated his hand from under Brian, who was sacked out against the bed. Dom used both hands to part Brian’s ass cheeks, hypnotised by where he was entering Brian’s body. He managed a handful of hard thrusts until he was coming, burying his head into Brian’s shoulder for the very last of his orgasm. 

He managed to pull himself up after a couple of breaths, rolling carefully off Brian and then dumping the used condom on the side table. 

Brian pushed himself up without looking at Dom, tossing over his shoulder something about a shower.

Dom stared at the ceiling, waiting for his breathing to go back to normal or for his world to shift back into something recognisable. He’d be happy with either. 

He had an urge to go for a drive—he did his best thinking when he was driving, and there was some definite thinking that needed to be done if he was to get him and Brian through this unscathed. Whatever the fuck _this_ was. 

Brian came back from the shower, toweling his hair.

“Still here?” he asked.

_Well fuck you too_ , Dom thought. He rolled off the bed and snagged his shorts.

“Fuck, I didn’t mean…” Brian let the sentence trail off, and Dom ignored him, pulling first his pants on then a random t-shirt since he couldn’t be fucked to try and find his own. It was tight across the shoulders and smelled of Brian.

“Later,” he said.

“Dom!”

Dom made sure he shut the front door carefully, not wanting it to slam.

  
  
  
  


The second he stepped into the garage the next day the atmosphere curdled. Leon and Vince were laughing in the corner but they stopped dead when they caught sight of him. Dom pushed away the nagging thought that Brian must have told Vince and Vince must have told everyone. He greeted everyone as usual, going over to the back to get into his overalls. 

He managed three hours. Three hours of silent conversations and everyone averting their eyes every time he so much as twitched in Brian’s direction. 

The garage was one wide open space with a small office and a bathroom out back. The only option for any privacy was the loading bay: the back doors were closed and it could be separated from the rest of the garage with a rolling door. Dom had exactly no reason to go in there and even less reason to take Brian with him, but he was pissed enough by lunch time not to care.

“Bri, can you come help me with this?”

Brian pushed away from the engine he was working on and walked to the back of the garage in silence. Dom pushed the doors closed behind him, aware of Vince’s eyes in particular on him.

Brian turned and took a breath to speak, but Dom pulled him into a kiss. Brian froze for a painful moment, then he was kissing Dom back. There was nothing hesitant in it either, lips and tongue and teeth, Brian pulling Dom’s overalls off his shoulders and trying to strip him out of the t-shirt beneath without breaking apart.

Dom pushed Brian against the nearest flat surface and got their overalls pulled down low enough to get Brian’s dick out. It was hot in his hand, wet at the tip and cut. Dom spat in his hand and started to jerk him off, trying to get the unfamiliar angle right. Judging by the almost constant stream of filth coming out of Brian’s mouth, he figured he was doing pretty well.

“Fuck, your _hands_ , Dom. Yeah, like that—”

Dom kissed him, liking the way Brian had gone sloppy and uncoordinated. He was usually so in-control that seeing him like this was almost as much of a thrill as getting him off. Brian came with a low sound, head tipped back against the wall. Dom mouthed down his throat, chasing the taste of his sweat and skin. He was unprepared for Brian to drop to his knees. He looked up through his eyelashes knowingly, and Dom groaned as Brian took his cock into his wet mouth. 

Brian had to know what he looked like down there. Dom tried to decide what to do with his hands, gripping the table behind him tightly rather than putting them into Brian’s hair. Letty always hated it when he touched her hair while he was giving head, which was a weird thought to have at the exact moment in time. He pushed it to the back of his mind, concentrating on the feel of Brian’s hot mouth on his cock and trying not to thrust. 

It didn’t take long: he’d been hard since they’d started to kiss and the little sounds Brian was making at the back of his throat were doing nothing for his self-control.

“Bri, I’m—,” he managed, and Brian took him all the way in.

He tried to keep quiet as he came, but judging from the smug look Brian wore when he finally opened his eyes he might not have done such a great job on that count. He pulled up his overalls and made a controlled descent to sit on the floor.

“Did you tell Vince?” Dom asked as he caught his breath.

“Yeah,” Brian admitted. 

“Idiot,” Dom huffed, too satisfied to be properly pissed off.

“Why aren’t you freaking out?” Brian asked. It was a typical Brian question: giving Dom the option of ducking out and talking about Vince blabbing instead of talking about whatever was going on between them.

Dom shrugged, pulling Brian close and running a hand experimentally through his hair: it was as soft as it looked.

“Done crazier things than this,” he replied, choosing to answer the hard question. 

He turned his head to kiss Brian. It was just as good as when they were fucking, he decided, and did it again. He could feel Brian smiling through the kiss like an idiot.

“You doing okay?” Dom asked when he pulled back and Brian was settled against him. He hoped maybe this was one of the times he could get some non-bullshit out of him.

“Yeah.” Brian lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “I’ve got a lot of things to freak out about I guess, with Tommy and you guys finding out about me and guys, and now—” he made a gesture that Dom took to mean _us fucking_ , then carried on, “but I swear I’m good, Dom. I’m dealing.”

“Good,” Dom said. “Me too. I’m dealing.” 

There was a profound silence when they stepped back in the room. Dom swung his arm over Brian’s shoulder and pulled him close, in case anyone had missed what was happening. A quick glance at Brian showed how calm he looked, but Dom could feel his tension thrumming under his arm.

“Hey, what do you want for lunch O’Conner?” Leon asked after a second. 

“He wants pabellon criollo with some fried plantain,” Vince said, one hand over his eyes and the other outstretched towards Brian.

“You going to get tired of this using-your-instincts shit any time soon, do you think?” Brian asked, relaxing a little.

“Fuck no, this is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I’m going to still tell people about this when I’m dead.” 

“Which will be very, _very_ soon,” Dom said lowly. Leon, standing a little behind Vince, was grinning so wide his head looked like it might drop off.

Vince swallowed audibly.

“What you want O’Conner?” Leon repeated, still grinning.

“I’ll have some pabellon criollo with plantains,” Brian replied, reaching up to squeeze Dom’s hand before going over to the engine he’d been messing around with before.

Vince punched the air in victory, but went back to the other side of the garage after catching the look on Dom’s face. 

Dom shook his head. He wasn’t sure what he’d ever done to deserve these idiots, but he was damn grateful for it.

**Author's Note:**

> I can be found on [Tumblr](https://xpityx.tumblr.com/) for incoherent fandom and anarchy, and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/xpityxfanfic) for purely writing updates. If you're worried about stuff in the tags please come ask me.


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